Marilyn Writes

Marilyn MacGruder Barnewall began her career as a journalist with the Wyoming Eagle in Cheyenne. During her 20 year banking career, she wrote extensively for The American Banker, Bank Marketing Magazine, Trust Marketing Magazine, and other major industry publications. The American Bankers Association (ABA) published Barnewall’s Profitable Private Banking: the Complete Blueprint, in 1987. She taught private banking at Colorado University for the ABA and trained private bankers in Singapore.

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Democrats: Quit Smoking

It is common
knowledge that the majority of people who die in fires are overcome with smoke
and that smoke inhalation is the cause of death, not the fire itself.

Conservative
broadcasters talk about how ridiculous Democrat commentary is… there is no
evidence of Russian wrong doing and never has been.

Evidence is the
fire. The stories are the smoke… the weapon of mass destruction aimed at
President Donald Trump by liberal progressives and “Never Trump”
neo-conservative traitors.

It is sometimes
hard to know who does more damage to our great nation: 1) The newspapers
who publish trashy false stories as news, or; 2) those who read stories which
provide no reliable named sources to validate the stories and, without checking
the fake news, pass them on to others who read and believe them because the
information came from a friend.

How do we know
there is no fire? Because any investigator worth his or her salt does
things in a specific, strategic, planned way: They investigate, they
gather evidence, and then they file charges. They do not investigate and
send every rumor to the far left media for publication… such behavior hampers
serious investigations. The Russia/Trump administration investigation has
been going on for almost a year and no evidence of wrong doing by Trump has
emerged.

The Trump/Russia
smoke has been building for a long time. If any believable evidence
existed, a Grand Jury would be impaneled and an indictment requested (if the
evidence supports indictment), or if the evidence is irrefutable, charges would
be filed.

There is no
evidence of collusion – though James Comey subtly tried to lay ground work for
it in his testimony on Thursday… testimony which did more damage to Comey (and
former Attorney General Loretta Lynch) than to anyone else.

There is no
evidence of obstruction of justice. Collusion and obstruction have very
specific definitions. Look them up. Google them and stop believing
what other people who have an agenda tell you.

It is interesting
how Hillary’s name has disappeared from all of the investigations going on in
Congress and all of the intelligence services. Gee, you don’t think
that’s part of the liberal progressive “get rid of him with smoke” plan
“because we’re toast if we don’t” strategy, do you?

Hillary’s the
fire and to keep from being burned she must generate a lot of smoke.
Otherwise people might see through the smoke and begin asking questions about
the numerous felonies of which she might be guilty… her involvement while
Secretary of State of putting 20 percent of America’s uranium in the
hands of Vladimir Putin and the Russians, for one (for which the Clinton
Foundation was well paid). That’s a fact, not an opinion. Records
exist that validate it.

If Democrats
can’t keep everyone talking about Donald Trump and Russia, the smoke would
clear and people might start talking about how Hillary committed at least one
felony by sending classified email messages on a non-protected, non-government
issued personal computer using a server in Colorado.

Those same classified
emails were forwarded from Hillary’s unprotected computer to Huma Abedin’s
personal computer where her husband, Anthony Weiner, a man recently convicted
of using email for sexually perverted reasons, copied them onto his personal
computer. Records confirm it happened.

You get the idea
why and how Democrat liberals use smoke to destroy others. They have done
it so often, they have the system down pat. They tried to ruin Sean
Hannity a couple of weeks ago and got slapped down.

This week they
are blowing liberal smoke about one of the most honest men in Washington,
D.C.: Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He will have his chance to
destroy the stories about him when he testifies this afternoon.

I understand why
conservatives are upset with Sessions. He appointed Deputy Attorney
General Rod Rosenstein to handle the investigations into Russia’s hacking of
American elections… and Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director and James
Comey’s mentor, Robert Mueller, as Special Counsel.

I agree with Newt Gingrich about Mueller being
totally inappropriate special counsel to investigate the Russian affair… he’s a
man with so many conflicts of interest involving James Comey and the FBI he is
totally the wrong man. To see why, go here.
Mueller will likely turn this investigation into a witch hunt. But upset
with Sessions or not, he is an honest man… one of the few in our nation’s
capitol.

Progressive
liberals understand their opponents – and human nature – very well. They
know the loyalty level of the average voter isn’t even skin deep.

The issues
creating the smoke that are leaks from the intelligence community and come from
Obama bureaucrats who are still employed in positions that give them access to
information a “Hate Trumper” should not have — like leaker James Comey.
They are holdovers from Obama whose jobs have not yet been filled by the Trump
team.

One of the most
hostile actions plotted to destroy the Presidency of Donald J. Trump comes from
the man who served as President for the eight years before Trump: Obama.
For the first time in more than 200 years of American history, a former
President is actively involved in trying to cause the President who replaced
him to fail.

A group set up by
Obama called “Organizing for Action” (OFA – too bad they didn’t add the word
League… OFAL) – is prepared to cause chaos and possibly violence around the
nation on the issues Trump supports and the former President opposes.

According to a New York Post article,
Obama’s OFA plans to implement change in communities on issues involving gun
control, socialist healthcare, abortion, gender equality, climate change, and
immigration reform. Gee, do any of those sound familiar?

Aren’t they the
very issues that caused Hillary Clinton to lose her bid for the Presidency
because she opposed them? Aren’t those things responsible for the victory
of Donald Trump? Aren’t these things a majority of people across the
country support (excluding those who live in large sanctuary cities)? As
his performance in office proves, Obama opposes them. Thus, they must be
changed. What the people support doesn’t matter to Barrack Obama and OFA.

The Post article makes readers
ask the question: If you had 30,000 people around the nation who ask “how
high” when you say “jump,” and if you had a court system corrupted by years of
liberal progressive judicial appointments, how much damage could you do to
America? Those are resources OFA has and that is how much damage Obama
appears to be planning.

Imagine for a
moment how this works. President Trump issues an Executive Order imposing
a travel ban on people who come from nations famed for their skills as terrorists.
They are experts at killing innocent people… whether slitting a woman’s throat
in Oklahoma on a public street, or killing almost 50 people in Orlando (exactly
a year ago), or murdering people who just gave them a baby shower. They
kill in many cities elsewhere in the world… murder is their claim to fame.

This Order runs
in opposition to OFA’s beliefs – and they want to impose those beliefs on all
of us because in their opinions of their own opinions, they are right.

OFA calls for
protests from its paid 30,000 members and for anti-immigration statements from
pro-illegal immigration policy experts… and ACLU lawyers swing into action,
filing lawsuits in jurisdictions where activist judges obstruct immigration
laws (the 9th District).

They call for
protests at airports and at Town Hall Meetings held by elected officials.
The left-wing media which supports all things liberal and progressive makes
sure anti-immigration protests receive extensive prime-time coverage (and they
make sure to feature sad pictures of weeping émigrés being turned away from the
land of opportunity). Because of Trump, they are unable to leave behind
their violent lives to live peacefully in America… like they live peacefully in
Belgium, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, etc.

The 9th District
Court makes a legal decision in opposition to the President’s travel ban and
without jurisdiction to do so places the citizens living in all other Court
Districts in the nation at risk by stopping the Presidents Order.
Something is wrong with that concept. Something is very wrong with a
legal system that permits it to happen.

And that is how
OFA, a group set up by Barrack Obama, works.

I got an email
this week that explains why liberal progressives behave the way they do – why,
for example, people are willing to pop up at a protest on a moment’s notice
(aside from the fact that many of them are unemployed, need a cause, and get
paid for doing so). You may have seen the same email. It is a
wonderful explanation of why the media so hates Donald Trump… so much so it
would rather destroy the nation than write truthful news of his plans and
achievements. It has to do with things staying the way they have always
been.

You start with a
cage containing four monkeys and inside the cage you hang a banana on a string
and place a set of stairs under the banana.

Before long, a
monkey will go the stairs and climb toward the banana.

You spray ALL the
monkeys with ice cold water. After a short time, another monkey makes an
attempt. As soon as he touches the stairs, you spray ALL the monkeys with ice
cold water.

It won’t take
many such repetitions of the above and when another monkey tries to climb the
stairs, the other monkeys will physically prevent it. They are tired of
shivering after taking unwanted ice cold water baths.

Now, put away the
cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new
monkey. The new monkey sees the banana and attempts to climb the
stairs. To his shock, all of the other monkeys beat the crap out of him.
After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs
he will be assaulted.

Remove another
monkey (of the original four) and replace it with a new monkey. The
newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes
part in the punishment – with enthusiasm – because he is now part of the
“team.”

Then replace the
third of the original monkeys with a new monkey, followed by the fourth.
Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he will be attacked.

The monkeys that
are beating the new monkeys have no idea why they are not permitted to climb
the stairs. They have no idea why they are beating the newest monkey…
none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with ice cold water.

Nevertheless, not
one of the monkeys will try to climb the stairway for the banana.
Why? Because in their minds getting beat up if you try to climb the
stairs is how it has always been!

And that
describes the behavior of media, the swamp in Washington, D.C. and the
politicians and the bureaucrats that populate it, and it describes the
unexplainable hatred of President Donald J. Trump. In the liberal progressive
world, that’s the way it has always been.

After listening to last Thursday’s monologue by
James Comey and his charges that the most “respected” newspapers in the nation, The
Washington Post and The New York Times, willingly print
stories they know to be false, suggests that these editors and reporters are
psycho.

They are like the
monkeys in a cage with that banana… and they thought the game would go on
forever because that’s the way it has always been. People would always
believe what they wrote because that’s the way it has always been.

Then there’s
CNN. They employed a woman who held by the hair a picture of President
Trump’s head with blood pouring down his face, telling the public she’s a
comedienne and this is funny. Such a person is mentally ill and should be
institutionalized. She is guilty of aiding and abetting the enemy! Isis recruiting will jump to a new high!

The woman defends
her actions by saying “I’m a comedienne.”

She has no
concept that her action is perverted. She thinks such actions are funny
and defends her self, blaming the Trump family for their reactions to her
exhibit designed to promote violence against the President. She cannot
believe someone doesn’t think she’s funny and thinks she is a victim because
someone she brutally attacked fought back and she is the loser. She’s
probably always been a loser.

Our FBI Director
is supposed to protect Americans from terror and other forms of violent
crime. James Comey is so weak it should frighten every one of us.
The FBI is headed by a man so insecure he’s afraid to say to his boss, “Mr.
President, this conversation is inappropriate.” He was too
frightened of Loretta Lynch to tell her he was heading an “investigation,” not
a “matter” after Lynch insisted he call it that – and he did.

Do we now have a
FBM rather than a FBI?

Thank God Putin
did not send the FBI a message while Comey was Director. He would be so
stunned he would lock himself in a closet for months.

I have said since the beginning that James Comey
is as slick as a wet snake. He proved it during his Senate hearing.
He did damage President Trump, but he did more damage to himself. The
personal notes he gave to a Columbia University Law Professor to leak to The
New York Times were written while he was still the FBI Director and
the notes belong to the government, not James Comey. They were not his to
leak. And that, I believe, represents misprision of
felony.

I never thought
I’d say this, but congratulations to Senator John McCain for (along with
Senator Tom Cotton R-AR) asking the most intelligent questions of the entire
Comey hearing.

Sunday, June 04, 2017

Which Dominates Your Life? Purpose Or Cause?

People must
have horribly miserable lives to willingly strap explosives on the chest of one
of their children and tell him or her to blow up not just themselves, but other
people, too.

Modern
Americans are so spoiled; most have no idea about the standard of living – or
lack of a standard – in poverty stricken nations. Too many of us have no idea just how blessed
we are and how thankful we should be.
Too few of us honor those who have lost their lives in service to
America.

What does
that really mean... “service to America”?
To many people, it means a person who gave their life so the idiot
children of California liberals can prevent freedom of speech at the University
of California Berkeley. It means sacrificing
their time on earth so we can grill hot dogs, hamburgers and steaks on our
barbies last Monday... Memorial Day.

Adults who
willingly tape explosives to their bodies and go to a public place to kill
others must have totally meaningless lives if that’s the only life purpose they
feel is worthy of them. When innocent
people who love life and are enjoying themselves at a public event need to
worry about being blown up by those who have no meaning beyond a violent cause,
we have returned to the attitudes enjoyed by our ancestors who lived in a cave. Regressive defines “progressive.”

People who
feel meaningless and powerless need a cause to find meaning in life. They have nothing of value inside of
themselves and must thus seek meaning by finding a “cause” outside of
themselves.

Having
a purpose implies choice; promoting a cause implies force. If you doubt that, the students who took over
the campus at Evergreen State College in Washington last week, demanding that
all white people leave the campus for a day, prove my point.

Having a
life purpose and having a cause are quite different things... they are not even
similar. The only way to fight stupidity
is to impose sufficient penalties to make people think twice before repeating
such behavior... like refusing any student loans to attendees of that school
because those who attend it are there not to learn but to force their views of
life on others. All financial aid to
such a school should be ceased because the adults are not teaching; they are
reacting to students who are teaching them how administrators should not
behave. What cowards!

We all need
a reason for being alive. We need to
feel we matter. If we can’t find a
meaningful purpose in life, many people seek meaning in death... suicide,
murder, violence – or, we escape facing life’s questions by seeking solace in
drugs. Or we take over university
campuses to feel a fake sense of power.

Having a
life’s purpose is an individual, not a group, thing. No two people have the same skills, the same
natural talents, the same thoughts or philosophies, the same education or
self-discipline. All of these things
make up a life purpose. That is
precisely why having a life purpose simply cannot exist in a group environment. Causes are born in groups. Life purpose is born in individuals.

People who
seek purpose by joining a group find no purpose, just a cause. I wonder if they realize that at the moment
they set off the explosives taped to their bodies, or as they run their car or
truck into an innocent group of people to kill them. Realize what?
Just how totally useless they are and how meaningless are their lives...
how they do not matter.

Those are
hard truths... but they are truths. And
we have other harsh truths with which we must come to grips. We don’t like to think about them because
it’s unpleasant to realize our own mortality.

The two
most basic truths in life are that 1) we are born and 2) we will die. It’s what we do between those two events that
either gives or withholds meaning for the time we spend on earth. A basic look at human behavior makes it very
clear that people have a deep need to feel the time they spent on earth matters
– that they matter.

It is
absolutely insane to bring people to America from extreme poverty and miserable
societies – people who kill their own offspring so they can have a better life
in the hereafter. This life is so bad,
death offers meaning unavailable to them in life: Happiness.
They come to a free society and then demand the laws that governed and
made their old lifestyle so miserable be put in place to govern them in their
new, freedom-based home.

At public
universities all over America, our children are being taught that Islam is a
religion of peace.

First, Islam
is not just a religion. It is a total
form of government and its “Constitution” is Sharia law. It is impossible to be a Muslim if you do not
accept Sharia law... just like it is impossible to be an American without pledging
allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. It would appear that many Americans have
forgotten that... especially those who attend institutions of higher
indoctrination.

In fact,
because Sharia law prevents any Muslim from swearing allegiance to any way of
life that takes precedence over Sharia -- to our Constitution -- a good case
can be made that Muslims cannot be citizens of this country. I have great respect for Muslims for being so
firm in their faith. Christians could
learn a few lessons from them.

Donald Trump
tried to convince people that there are some in the world who are better off
staying in the misery they have created for themselves, but liberal
progressives who prefer socialism to a constitutional republic fight to prove
him wrong... but all of the explosions and death keep adding to President
Trump’s wisdom on this subject.

We are told
by most of our professors who are employed by universities that are financially
supported by taxpayers – that would be you and I – that Islam is a religion of
peace. As explained above, it is not just
a religion. It is a religion contained
within a government structure called Sharia law. The following statistics prove there is
nothing peaceful about it.

The
Crusades began in 1095. For those
students who attend university in America and do not know which nations fought
in America’s Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the
Korean or Vietnam wars, the Crusades were official wars declared by various
nations against Islam. What motivated
these nations to declare war against non-European nations in the Middle East beginning
in 1095?

In 1095, Muslims
had been attacking Christians for almost 1,500 years. They declared their wars against hundreds of
nations and fought over millions of square miles.

All we hear
today is how the Muslim nations are the victims of Western imperialism. However, the 1,500 years of Muslim
imperialism should and does give Christian nations reasons to prevent the
takeover of Christian nations today... though Angela Merkel and the rest of the
G-20 do not seem to be aware of the dangers (regardless of the number of
bombings, motor vehicle deaths, and rapes against the people of their nations
-- their primary job is to protect citizens, not immigrants from the Middle
East).

Maybe it
will help if we remind the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) about the
history of wars declared against Christian nations by Muslims.

In the
fifth century B.C. (for Millennials and for those who attended Ivy League
schools, that means Before Christ), the Persians invaded Europe in an attempt
to conquer the Greeks.

August 20,
636 (that is 459 years before Christians fought back via the Crusades), the
Muslims declared war, defeating the Byzentines, at the battle of Yarmuk.

In July 637
(458 years BTC which means before the crusades), Muslims conquer Iraq.

In 639-642,
Muslims conquer Egypt.

In 641,
Muslims Crusaders control Syria and Palestine and that began the siege of
Jerusalem which lasted five months. It
is said 75,000 soldiers took part in these two efforts and they were quite
bloody wars. So it is clear that until 641,
Jerusalem belonged to the Jews, not the Muslims who became the “new
Palestinians” and remain so.

Between 644
and 650, Muslim Crusaders conquer Cyprus, Tripoli in North Africa and establish
Islamic rule in Iran, Afghanistan and Sind.

In 652, the
Muslims plundered Italy... the beginning of ongoing attacks.

In 678, the
Muslims attacked the Byzantine capital of Constantinople.

In 713, the
Muslims conquered Spain.

By the time
the Crusades began, an article in ClashDaily.com says “...Muslim armies had
conquered two-thirds of the Christian world.”

And that is
what motivated the Crusades in 1095.
There were terrible things done to Muslims by those holding themselves
out to be followers of Christ and there is no excuse in this world for such
savagery. It is particularly disgusting
because Christianity, like Islam, holds itself out to its believers to be a
religion of love, joy and peace.
However, for the 1,500 years prior to the Crusades, the Christians were
the ones being savaged by Muslims. They did
not become the attackers until 1095.

On the
other hand, after being attacked, savaged and abused by Muslims for 1,500 years
before the Crusades, Christian anger is somewhat understandable if not
acceptable. There is nothing in the
Bible that tells us to turn the other cheek to evil. We are to identify it and, when possible,
destroy it.

And here we
are again... Christians are being slaughtered by Muslims. There are political reasons and political
crimes behind the wrong-doings of the Western Christian world against the
Middle East -- and from the Muslim perspective, they are good and we are the
evil and they are trying to destroy us.
Nothing excuses the kinds of crimes perpetrated by Muslims against innocent
people in this, the 21st century after the birth of our Lord...
especially the intentional killing of children.
There is also no excuse for the innocent Muslim lives lost from the wars
perpetrated there by the West, including America, over oil... or is it the
poppy fields? Whether it is a bomb that unintentionally
kills a child, or a knife used to slit a child’s throat, the result is the
same: Death of an innocent.

It has
always puzzled me why there is so little discussion in the Christian world
about the two sons of Abraham: Ishmael
and Isaac. Read Genesis 16. An Egyptian woman named Hagar was the maid servant
of an elderly woman named Sarai, wife of Abram – who was about 85 when God told
him in Genesis 15 that he and Sarai would have a son..., they never had
children. Sarai, wanting her husband to
have a son, had encouraged her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar, to sleep with her
husband, Abram.

The Lord
had told Abram that he and Sarai would have a son (Genesis 15), but both were
so aged they did not take the words seriously.
Sarai actually laughed at the idea.
When Hagar conceived, she looked upon Sarai with contempt. Sarai dealt harshly with Hagar who ran away
into the desert.

An angel of
the Lord found Hagar on the way to Shur and told her to return to her mistress,
saying: “Behold, you are pregnant and
shall bear a son. You shall call his
name Ishmael because the Lord has listened to your affliction.” The name Ishmael means “God hears.”

The angel
continued: “He shall be a wild donkey of
a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall
dwell over and against all his kinsmen.”

According
to the MacArthur Study Bible, “wild donkey” refers to a wild donkey that is
fiercely aggressive and independent and Ishmael would exhibit these traits and
pass them on to his Arab descendants.
Abram was 86 years old when Ishmael was born.

Then
several years later, as God had promised Abram, Sarai became pregnant and had a
son and, as God had told Abram he must do, the child was named Isaac.

So, Abram
became Abraham and Sarai became Sarah, as Abram was instructed by the Lord.

As the two
sons grew in age and stature, Sarah became aware that as long as the
illegitimate child of Abraham remained in the tribe, Ishmael would cause doubt
to be cast upon the legitimate child’s right to inherit from his father. Sarah demanded that Abraham cast Hagar and
Ishmael out. It was difficult because Abraham
loved the illegitimate son he’d had with Hagar.

An angel of
the Lord appeared and told Abraham, “Whatever Sarah says to you do as she tells
you for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. And I will make a nation of the son of the
slave woman also, because he is your offspring.”

If you
believe the Bible and continue reading the story of Ishmael and Isaac to its
conclusion, it certainly appears that the violence that exists between
Christians and Muslims in 2017 has its roots in Isaac, the son of Sarah and
Abraham, and in Ishmael, son of Hagar and Abraham..

Isaac was
the father of Jacob who wrestled with an angel all night before meeting his
twin brother, Esau, the next day. As
dawn neared, the angel touched Jacob’s thigh and asked his name and when Jacob,
son of Isaac, told him, the angel informed him that from this day forward his
name would be Israel, no longer Jacob.
Until that moment, the word Israel is not spoken in the Holy Bible... the
nation of Israel was born to Isaac’s son.

Perhaps our
Creator has a sense of humor... one that has for several thousand years let the
battle between illegitimate and legitimate sons, of abuse of an Egyptian slave
woman and her son, of the Christians and Jews (who worship the same God) fighting
to defend themselves from a wild donkey of a son who did produce 12 princes, as
God’s angel promised Hagar Ishmael would.

Upon reading the history of Islam and Christianity/Judaism, it appears
one has been attacking the other for 2,500 years and the other has been
defending and then attacking back.

Perhaps we
are nearing the end of the battle for dominance between Ishmael and Isaac?

About Me

Marilyn MacGruder Barnewall began her career in 1956 as a journalist with the Wyoming Eagle in Cheyenne. During her 20 years (plus) as a banker and bank consultant, she wrote extensively for The American Banker, Bank Marketing Magazine, Trust Marketing Magazine, was U.S. Consulting Editor for Private Banker International (London/Dublin), and other major banking industry publications. Barnewall taught private banking at Colorado University and has authored seven banking books, one dog book, and two works of fiction and one biography.
Barnewall is the former editor of The National Peace Officer Magazine and has written editorials for the Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News and Newsweek, etc. She has written for News With Views, World Net Daily, Canada Free Press, Christian Business Daily, Business Reform, and others. She has been quoted in Time, Forbes, Wall Street Journal and other national and international publications. She can be found in Who's Who in America (2005-10), Who's Who of American Women (2006-10), Who's Who in Finance and Business (2006-10), and Who's Who in the World (2008).